Philadelphia Sheriff says he’s short-staffed

Philadelphia’s Sheriff says he’s very short-staffed and a new family court building will make things worse.  

Sheriff Jewell Williams says even with 30 new hires once the new fiscal year begins in July, he will still be short on staff.

“Every time someone retires, it takes about three to six weeks before that person can be replaced,” he said. “That means the courtroom will be down from three to six weeks. Every time we send someone to training at Penn State it takes 26 weeks to train our deputy sheriffs.”

Williams says he would need another 75 people in order to staff the new new family courthouse and that’s just the criminal side of his office.

“On the sheriff sale day we have to close the office because we don’t have adequate staffing to do the sheriff sales and keep the real estate division open,” he said. 

Williams would like to use the Philadelphia Police Academy for at least part of training, instead of having to send new recruits to Penn State.